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A twenty four year old devoted mother of two fleeing a violent relationships am bags packed car, running, her daughters strapped into the backseat.

Mom told me that she needed to go back inside to grab something.

Panic.

Amy is dead, sir By Amy's.

Dead eight Confusion World.

About five minutes they said, NASA suicide.

One hundred percent.

This is emersing.

What do you think is really the honest truth about Amy?

The Truth About Amy.

Episode nineteen.

I'm Liam Bartlett.

And I'm Alison Sandy.

And welcome back out.

I thought we'd start today with the feedback we've received since starting season two of The Truth About Amy podcast.

Many of our listeners are probably wondering why they haven't heard anything from some of the key witnesses for a little while.

Well, it just so happens.

One of the key three, shall we say, Joshua Brydon, sent us a very heartwarming message, well sort of.

It was sent to the Facebook page set up by Amy's best friend Aaron Gower, who has been fantastic in her support on this.

Erin has been unbelievable.

I've got to say.

I mean, if Amy was still alive, she would just absolutely love her even more.

And this is what the message from Joshua Brighton said, and I'm quoting.

If my name keeps being mentioned on this page, I will be taking legal action against this page as well as the news cruise behind this anyone that follows this page.

I'm just reading as his folks, because there's no punctuation on this.

I have been discriminated, says josh On here, and have received threats in messages from it all.

I have assisted the police every time they have come to talk to me or called me.

Ewes are no better with what yous doing.

It is narcissistic behavior, says josh that yous are doing, and it is wrong.

Yous are no better than the gas lighting, violent people you're trying to expose.

I will say this once.

I'm not friends with David anymore.

He's talking about David Simmons and have nothing to do with him whatsoever.

Three words on the end there, full stop.

Now that's Joshua's loving message to the podcast and all our listeners, and particularly to Aaron Gower's Facebook page that she set up to support Amy Wensley.

Now, let me just go through this very quickly, and Joshua, good luck mate.

I'll see you in court anytime you want to bring a counsel and try to sue anybody who's part of this podcast.

I'd welcome that.

That would be fantastic because we'd love to see you in the stand.

And I've got some questions of my own.

Rather than you running away like you did last time I tried to talk to you, am need to let it go.

I don't have to talk.

To you, but let me just go back, Joshua says.

If my name keeps being mentioned on this page, I'll be taking legal action against his page Blubber as well as the news crew is behind this.

Well, the news crews are only doing their job, Joshua.

They're not going to be exposed legally anywhere.

But I hate to disappoint you.

I've been discriminated on here, he says, and receive threats in messages.

Well, threats are no good from anybody.

That's the only thing in this entire message that I agree with, But you certainly haven't been discriminated.

What we're trying to find is the truth, Joshua.

But I'll go on.

He says, I've assisted the police every time they've come to talk to me or called me.

We don't know that, and we don't know the quality of the assistance you've given police.

And I, for one, seem to think there are other things that perhaps perhaps you have still not shared with the police.

But look, we'll leave that in abeyance, like the rest of the information that I think that you have in your back pocket somewhere.

He says, what you're doing, us are doing.

That's all of us.

I think he means Allison is narcissistic behavior.

Narcissistic behavior, Well, that normally relates to people loving themselves and being very self indulgent, and I think that's probably the wrong word.

He then says, it is wrong.

Yous are no better.

Now, this is the key to the whole message.

Us are no better than the gaslighting, violent people you're trying to expose.

Well, a huge green tick there, Joshua, because yes, yes, we are trying to expose them, and they are gaslighting, and they are violent people.

But how do you know that, Joshua.

How does Joshua know that the people we're trying to expose are gaslighting violent people?

And where's he getting that information from?

Allison?

And then he says, I'm not friends with David anymore.

Why would he say that and include that on the same line as the gaslighting violent people.

That's very interesting choice.

Maybe that's just a run of conscience that he has when he's composing this little message.

Who knows again, Joshua, if you'd like to contact us directly, more than happy to have you on the podcast and you can come in and you can see that we're not discriminating against you, and we're more than happy for you to have your say in full, not just on a Facebook page.

But I'll happily sit across the table from you and listen to everything you have to say and you can pour your heart out.

But probably a good idea, the third tick in the trifecta, Joshua, is that you're not friends with David anymore, because I think from the evidence we've presented so far, you're probably not a good influence on each other.

So it's probably a step forward in your personal and social life.

That you don't associate anymore, you're probably a lot better off, even though I'm not a qualified psychologist.

Now I also have some news, albeit I wish it was better.

But I reached out to the cleaners Robert employed to clean up the scene after Amy's death.

Now, I've known about these people for a while, and I won't name them because you know, they're small business and I don't want it to reflect poorly on them.

They're professional cleaners, are they not?

Yeah, they're professional cleaners yet okay, And to tell you the truth, I didn't hold out much hope because I knew Anna had contacted them several years back with no success.

But Anna spoke to a woman who said her mum and sister cleaned the scene and she would ask her mom to call her.

Now, this never happened, Limb, despite Anna leaving at least three voice messages, so unsurprisingly, they didn't speak to me either.

But like Brydon's make Caid, if there was a trial, they would, I would imagine, be compelled to give evidence that at least be subpoened.

Many, Yeah, many would be called.

Yeah, and there are quite a few, right, there are quite a few.

And I won't caid talk.

Well, I guess because he doesn't have to do.

Okay, it's a whole thing.

Right, He's not compelled.

Yeah, yeah, he's.

Not compelled to talk.

And even at an inquest, I don't know.

They don't have that power.

But Joshua Bryden's mate cade was at the Serpentine property earlier in the day, wasn't he.

No, no, But he was the one that josh Brien said he received text from as he was leaving the property and he was supposed to pick him up from the train station.

It's all very convoluted, there's a lot there, but it would be very interesting to hear from him, for sure, it absolutely would be.

And look, I know we've touched on this before, but Amy's case is not isolated.

There are several suicides and what's loosely termed accidents of women reported which are dubious at best, and most of those are unfortunately DV related, there's no doubt about that.

However, statistics were never recorded because you know, they fell into that magical bucket of mystery and a lot of sort of you know, misadventure or natural causes or whatever you want to however you want to carve it up.

It just wasn't right now now, ten years ago that changed.

Charrell Moody is an anti violence activist, femicide and child death researcher, and the creative of Australia's only memorial to women and children lost to violence.

It's pretty amazing there's only one.

Her projects include Australian Femicide Watch, the Red Heart Campaign, She Matters, and the Australian Femicide and Child Deathmap.

Now.

Charrell's been documenting the killing of women and children since twenty fifteen here in Australia.

She's also a journalist of incredible note, having won many awards, including two Walkleys, and after reporting on so many murders of women, Charrell decided she had to do more.

It started as the Red Heart Campaign, which still exists spart Australian Femicide Watch like a I guess it's just an extension of that, but essentially about ten years ago, as a journalist, I was doing a special campaign I guess, on domestic violence for regional papers up in Queensland and we were getting a lot of stories from women who wanted to tell their stories and fair enough so they should be able to editors were giving us kickback though, saying, you know, it's too much bleak, it's too much domestic violence.

We've had enough for this.

We can't publish all their stories, and so the red Heart campaign started as a space where people would share a red heart on their skin and tell their stories.

IT'SI kind of like to at least give a platform for these people I had to say no to.

And of course a natural part of that became documenting the killing of women and children, not just as a result of domestic violence, but as a result of all violence, because we lose women and children in many ways.

Yes, around sixty percent of their deaths are due to domestic and family violence, but if we don't count the other forty percent, we're not tracking their deaths.

We don't understand what's happening.

You know, we can't really get a grip on the actual toll of femicide and child death in Australia.

So yeah, so that's pretty much how it started.

But the reason that I do specifically document the killing of women and children is because it's a homage of sorts to the two little girls killed by my stepfather.

So he murdered Stacy and Tracy and Sandra Dorothy Bacon, and it was a way of saying, well, let's have a space for them where they can be remembered forever, because the headlines no longer exist around them, of course, a space for their families and their communities to be able to remember and read their stories.

I guess the whole project is really to kind of pay back in the only way that I can for what he took away.

Clearly, this will never change their stories, but I have always believed that their stories can change the future for women and girls and children, and so that's why the Femocide and child death projects exist.

Well, so, Charrelle, obviously you were in this space already, but when you started to track it, were you surprised by what you found out?

Since I think the things that surprised me was the rates that we lose women and children and the contexts, like all of the context because all of the discussion, almost all the discussion around in particular femicide in Australia focuses on domestic and family violence as the context, and look, there is no doubt that is the largest context for the killing of women in particular.

However, what we do is we freeze out the discussion around women who are killed in other contexts, so associate violence and stranger violence.

By not having those discussions, we don't talk about forty of deaths, and that's a significant number of deaths to just ignore, basically, and we don't talk about the funding that's needed to prevent those deaths and the policy that's needed and the changes in the law that's needed.

We just ignore an entire section of women killed.

And the only time that we don't ignore those deaths is when there's a death that attracts very high media attention.

Now I can see where Charelle's coming from here, because while often violent deaths are mentioned in the media, very few are part of justice campaigns.

A lot has to line up to make that possible.

Charelle also noted that while there is a big focus on DV deaths where men are the perpetrators, which is understandable because they are the majority, let's face it, that's the fact a very significant number of femicides don't fit into that category.

My work is aiming to bring a spotlight onto all killings of all women and children, and by putting the information out there and having it collected in one place.

It's a space where policy makers, journalists, politicians, anti violence sector where they can access this information and they can see the patterns.

And one of the things that I found with my research, so I have a very extensive database offline, the patterns are there.

So the same patterns that underpin domestic and family violence killings of women actually underpin the kill of women by their neighbors, their friends, their bosses, their colleagues, by their associates, as well as the stranger violence killing.

So we can actually see a pattern across them, and we see patterns of sexism, misogyny, the particular factors, the particular drivers, so factors like alcohol, drug use, mental health problems and all of that sort of stuff.

So we actually get a really good idea of what the patterns are, who's doing the killing, what the factors are behind them, and what the drivers are, and so we get we just get a much better overview of why women are being killed.

So what are the other factors?

Mainly are we talking alcohol and drugs primarily?

Yeah, so alcohol, drugs, and mental health are key factors.

So when we're talking about drivers and factors, it's really really important to understand the difference.

So the drivers are the things at a society or level, the way that women are viewed, for example, the way that women have into categories like mothering, maternal instinct, the way that we have sexist jokes, sexism, misogyny.

So those are drivers.

Factors are those things that elements that played a part in the violence.

They're not the cause of violence, but they were an element of the violence.

For example, when someone is using ice and they kill a person, that's a factor.

It doesn't excuse the violence, but we know that this drug played a part in it.

Yeah, the same as obviously gambling, alcohol, and mental health.

You know, so usually addiction and mental health are the two big factors, very common.

Mental health and addiction are almost always present in many killings.

Can I ask you about the statistics of femicide From what I see, it seems to be increasing.

Yes, definitely, definitely.

Over the last sixteen months, we've seen a huge increase.

Last year was the biggest year of femosides i've documented in ten years now.

My database does go back to white settlement.

It's not complete because it's a very big job to complete it, but I believe I've captured every known and suspected femicide since mid nineteen nineties to now, so it's definitely the biggest, the biggest level.

As of today, we're sitting on one hundred and three unlawful killings of women last year and we're on twenty four unlawful killings of women this year.

I believe that this year is kind of flattening out, so probably going back to the expected one woman killed every four or five days.

At the start of last year, we saw the platforming of some really very bad people.

So obviously Donald Trump came to the foe again because of his big for the presidential position.

We saw flicks are actually platforming quite a few very bad people.

There was a whole bunch of them.

There was just all of these blokes being platformed who have histories of violence.

We have seen thankfully the old MAT's been moved off, but Andrew Tait on Spotify, so the platforming of these men really there was just a really huge amount of platforming of them last year and it kind of coincided with that peak in femocide.

But the peak in femocide has been global, not just Australia.

So something really big shifted last year and women paid the price for that, and it feels like it's it's still happening.

This year, the deaths of evened out, Like officially, I feel like the deaths have evened out, but it must be.

You have to remember that I'm actually monitoring multiple deaths that I haven't published because I just haven't been able to get solid confirmation.

But I would say that there's at least six per potential femicides that I'm yet to officially declare from this year.

What are the factors that you have to count in for femicide, you know, because we've got suicides and accidents too.

Yeah, this is the problem.

So the organization it's called Australian Femicide Watch because most women are killed as a result of femicide, so they are killed by men.

We do need to keep into account that I do actually document the killing of women by women very rare, super rare occurrences.

Last year, for instance, ninety six percent of women killed were lost amount violence.

But I still document those women for a number of reasons.

But for me to declare it, I need confirmation solidly from family and all police.

The problem is policemen always declare it.

So for instance, we have a death in Queensland that I've declared.

The police have told her family they're investigating her death as a homicide, but they haven't declared it officially.

So it's based on my communication with her family and sources within the Queensland Police Force to not every homicide is declared officially.

Western Australia is really shit at that.

They often leave deaths out of the public domain and I find out about them from family and find out that, hey, this person's been charged with murder or manslaughter, but the cops never said anything.

But yeah, like for me, the minimum is police confirmation and all confirmation from family, and I'm happy to take police confirmation if it comes as a source, if it's not official, as long as there's a lining up and everything just coheses.

Okay, So how do you do that?

Do you contact the media units?

What's your communication channels with police?

So it's usually just through sources in the police force.

Almost all deaths are confirmed officially, but some of them they won't say to you.

The media unit won't tell you, and so you go to your source within.

So if you have a source in homicide, very very helpful, so they'll tell you officially off the record.

Okay, Yeah, it's just about using your contacts.

Like as a journalist, that's what you do.

So how do they compare throughout the state.

So WA isn't they're not as open.

So in the last two years, I have two deaths, one from the year previous one from last year that WA police never publicized, and I found out through their families.

Their families have come to me and said, hey, this is my person, this person's charged with manslaughter.

Why aren't they on your database?

And it's simpler because there's been no publicity around their deaths, and so you kind of you know, you have to work your way backwards and really work the contacts to get that confirmation.

But WA is really it's consistently bad.

The rest of their states are okay, and territories okay, s WA's the worst in Australia.

Yeah, for me, definitely, I mean there are just I mean, obviously we're chatting about that Amy Wensley situation.

But I want to give you an example of a death in WA that I'm monitoring at the moment.

A mum to a toddler was found a few months ago dead in a water tank.

The water tank had a foot of water in a maximum.

Her toddler was beside her body.

She was discovered by someone who heard the baby crying in the tank.

So someone's walking by, they've heard the baby crying, they've come to the tank.

They found mum dead, baby perfectly fine.

Police were called in and the first thing they said to her family was she killed herself.

And her family have said to them, but her baby's there, and she would never have killed herself, A because she has her baby, and b because her baby's next to her.

So the police then found out that her former partner, who had been stalking her, was in the area, was within a few kilometers radius, was actually there at the time.

The police have not advertised this death.

They've not publicized her death in any way.

There's been no public communication about it.

Her family is the one that's come to me and said, we don't know what's going on, we don't understand why they're doing this.

Is there anything that you can do?

So I spoke to them about a month ago, So for quite a number of weeks after her death, they were being told suicide, suicide, suicide.

Only about a month ago did they bring family members in to say oh, we're just gonna do some interviews with you.

Those interviews are still ongoing, so it took them quite a while just to do interviews with family members.

It's regional detectives who are handling this to a very small unit of detectives up in the remote regional area where she was found.

But the automatic assumption was woman in a water tank has killed herself.

Her family swears black and blue that that is not what's happened.

So we have so many issues here.

We have the police jumping to a conclusion, there's no coroner's report, there's no proper investigation, and we also have police not actually letting us know that a woman has been found dead in a water tank or dead under suspicious circumstances.

Isn't there a legal responsibility for that to occur?

No, well not to tell us.

They don't.

Police don't have to communicate anything to the public.

So they have to obviously record it internally.

But yeah, yeah, of course it's got to go through to the coroner.

Like you know, there's obviously the things that they have to follow.

But as for putting out immedia rely saying a woman's being found dead in suspicious circumstances at this location.

They don't have to do that.

There's no obligation.

There's absolutely no obligation.

Can I ask you then about the demographics with this woman.

She's Aboriginal, she's an Aboriginal woman.

That's one of the reasons why the investigation is not going to be a priority for them.

And we know that.

We know that when Aboriginal women are disappeared or diet suspicious circumstances, there's almost no proper investigation.

We see it repeatedly.

It also happens when women where they're known to have addiction, where they have mental health, where they are disabled, basically, where their background is diverse or disadvantaged.

All right, so familiar story, right.

This is something that's recognized across all the forums, all the PEAT bodies who represent family, domestic violence or just you know, I don't imagine in femicide too.

I mean, this doesn't seem to change though, and it doesn't seem to be any inroads for change.

No, every time a woman dies and we know about it.

So for instance, a woman has been found in Sydney Harbor this week, right, and the police they're not really saying anything, but they'll probably come out and say it's not suspicious, and I'm just going to go.

But is it not suspicious?

Because we've seen this over and over again.

We saw it with Audrey Griffin.

She died, she was killed.

Here is Audrey Griffin's mum.

She's just everything that you'd ever imagine we want from a child.

It's like you can't breathe.

It's like you don't want to breathe.

Do.

I need to find the strength and I needed to find the strength because I wasn't satisfied with what the outcome.

Was it going.

Now, just a bit of background here for listeners who don't know this case.

Nineteen year old Audrey Griffin's fully clothed body was discovered in a creek on New South Wales central coast in March this year.

She'd been reported missing, having not come home after going out the previous night.

Now police initially ruled her death non suspicious and accidental drowning to be specific.

It's just incredible until video footage turned up.

And here's the other rub.

Police had that video footage in their possession for two and a half weeks before somebody viewed it, which I just find unbelievable.

So here's this nineteen year old girl goes missing Saturday night, Sunday morning, the parents call it.

In Sunday morning, the police find her body, and they know that she's been out to the pub, the local pub the night before.

The pub's got CCTV.

No one views the CCTV footage for two weeks.

Two weeks and they've found her body and she drowned.

Can you believe that?

Can you believe it?

I mean, that's just But again the parallels with Amy Wensley and police investigations.

This is in March this year.

I just find this just incredible.

Now that video footage showed heard leaving the pub and guess what a bloke following it.

Now it turned out to be a fifty three year old man with a long history of violence, a long history of violence, and a bloke that should have been in jail.

But I won't go down that path.

I mean, it's a complicated story and only recently, you know, he killed himself in jail.

So that case is now over.

I'm not sure whether that's good for the family or bad for the family, depends on your own particular point of view.

But the man responsible has taken his own life as a result.

Eventually, once he was charged, arrested and then thrown into remand but here's more from cherrell family.

He was saying, there's no way she would have died in these circumstances.

And her friends are saying that.

And it's her family, her friends, her community who were out there finding the evidence and shaking the tree to get the police to investigate.

And this was a young white woman who was exceedingly popular, the kind of woman that you would expect the police to bend over backwards to get a proper outcome on.

They just from the get go swept it under the carpet until certain CCTV footage was given to them by the person who had the CCTV footage.

They didn't do it.

They didn't do that job.

And we saw that with Courtney Anderson up in the Gladstone area.

She's exited a car at speed on a highway.

Her partner is in the car.

He has a history of domestic violence against her.

Courtney Anderson and her partner were in a car heading to Rockhampton around five point fifteen yesterday afternoon.

Somehow she fell from the vehicle.

It is our understanding that Courtney's partner was driving the vehicle.

He was planning on leaving.

She had for her job, She had plans for getting her hair cut the next day.

Something happened on that highway, and he hasn't been charged.

He's been charged with having that's it.

That's the most he's charged with.

Her family says she wasn't suicidal.

There was no indication that she intended on ending her life.

They swear black and blue that something happened in that vehicle and she was either forced to exit in fear or she exited willingly.

She started investigating that automatically went to suicide, and the coroner automatically went to suicide.

Her family's been advocating for more than a year.

So now she's been dead since April one, we're thirteen months in and only now other police saying to them were instigating this as a homicide.

But they're still not publicizing that.

The only reason that they're saying this is because her family has been shaking the tree from the day that they were told that it was a suicide.

They have been pushing, pushing, pushing, there's a petition.

Her stepmum posts every day on social media about Courtney.

You know her family are speaking at rallies, they're trying to speak to politicians, They're doing everything possible to get a proper investigation.

Know about the Western Australia woman Courtney Anderson.

We know with Brianna Robinson who fell from a height, Come for her family, Caitlin Thornton, South Wales, ed and Westbrook and Tasmania.

Like that is just a little selection of them.

You include them on the Themoside.

Watch, Anderson and Robinson are included.

Now Courtney Anderson is included because I was able to get conformed that police are now getting this as a homicide even though they haven't sized that, and I am comfortable with that.

Like I think it meets the threshold for me.

Brianna Robinson was considered a suspicious death.

Okay, so Cherille says, it is a major setback when police don't investigate properly from the get go.

That's something of an understatement, but importantly it's not irredeemable.

There's two problems.

Firstly, is the homicide squad is not brought in.

So if you're not bringing in a homicide squad, which is a dedicated unit of detectives who this is what they do.

They know their way around suspicious deaths.

They know how to get to the truth of them.

If you're not bringing them in from the get go, then you're going to miss a lot of vital opportunities.

So my understanding, in the case of Courtney Anderson, the local detective called the homicides squad, They had a chat and he basically said to them, no, we reckon, it's a suicide.

And that was the end of the discussion.

So the homicide squad was never called in.

Never understand why that didn't happen in this situation.

The other thing is just, yeah, if you have local detectives who do not have the experience around suspicious deaths, and if they're talking to a potential perpetrator and the perpetrators giving them the story and they're leaning into that, then there's no will to move further.

How hard is it then, once that determination has been made, to get them to then consider it to change that determination.

Sometimes it takes the advocacy.

In a situation with Courtney, her family's just constantly rattling the cage.

In the situation with Audrey Griffin, it's the community, it's a friend, it's a family rattling a cage.

It shouldn't be like that.

Every one of these deaths needs to be investigat from the get go as a potential homicide.

It is better to put the resources of the homicide squad into the investigation and waste that resource if it turns out to be a non suspicious death, then to have a suspicious death never investigated properly and no one brought to justice, to potentially have a killer out there to deny their families the truth.

Yes, so is Amy Wensley on your list on the femicide?

Yes, Amy is on the list.

And again it's one of those really hard ones.

One of the big difficulties for me is the defamation.

So what factors did you tick off for Amy?

Now that the podcast has come out, and now that all of the information is coming out, that makes it a different story for me, That makes it a different risk.

I am more comfortable with that risk because I know going into a civil court, we can bring the detective in if I'm sued for defamation, we can bring these people in and they can justify my reasoning for publication.

I guess that's the whole thing, right, I mean, you'd come across this a lot, as you say, from defamation, but also a reluctance from authorities necessarily to confirm it.

When we're talking about the defamation risks, you have to understand that every time I add an addition to the watch or the red Heart campaign, you know, it's the same defamation risks that you have as a journalist working in mainstream media.

The difference is I don't have a deformation fund, and we all know that a person charged with murder can still sue for defamation.

I'm fine with those risks, obviously, very comfortable with adding a person who's been charged, But in terms of just what happens if I get slammed with ten defamation cases in one year, I am fucked, Like I would lose everything.

So I just, yeah, I'm often really very slow and careful, and I have a lawyer, and I go like, mate, do we pass the test here?

Can we legitimately defend this if it goes to court?

So yeah, that's why I'm really wary about that.

No, absolutely, but you can say that despite these extraordinary statistics that you've collated, it's conservative.

Yeah, I actually think the femicide toller is significantly higher than I have it.

It's definitely higher than the government's official figures.

The government doesn't actually have a femicide told by the way, so it's definitely higher than what the government says because the way that they document homicide, they only document homicide basically, they don't document manslaughter or lesser charges.

But yeah, I think I think the toller is significantly higher, and I think it's because we just have so many deaths across Australia that are not being investigated, especially the so called suicide deaths.

What do you think of the laws that are being introduced, and I mean obviously in New South Wales it seems to be the most progressive.

They've got ankle bracelets.

Now for DV offenders' coercive control laws, what do you think are they working and what else needs to be.

Done so we do have something.

Definitely we definitely need to be tracking DV offenders for sure.

That should be right across the country, especially ones where we know that there is a high risk of violence.

The thing about the coersion laws that those are kind of problematic.

We already see without those laws, we see women who are victims of violence being charged with domestic violence offenses because they've stood up for themselves, or because basically they've stood up for themselves, or because the perpetrator says they've been.

Violent, they're the aggressor.

Yeah, the aggressor.

And that situation is primarily impacting women from disadvantage or diverse background, So again, Aboriginal women, women from multicultural communities who don't speak English very well or don't speak English at all and are reliant on translators from in their communities to get the information across.

We're also seeing that with women who have disability who struggle to communicate, so where there's often communication barriers or the situation where Aboriginal women are automatically being declared the offender.

So those coersion laws are really problematic and a lot of people in the sector will tell you that it's good to have laws that recognize it, but the laws have to not penalize the victim, and that's kind of where we're at at the moment.

We just have failures at every level, especially definitely in the legal area.

So we have perpetrators being misidentified as victims.

We have perpetrators being charged with breaching DeVos or assault and then being bailed either by the watchhouse or by the magistrate.

We have perpetrators getting early parole and going on to kill.

They're not being tracked.

We have perpetrators who have entirely finished their sentences and there is no way of tracking them being out in the community.

The thing is that this is just one small area of the failures that we are facing with violence against women.

So we have major hurdles with the courts.

We have major hurdles with policing.

We have major hurdles with safe housing or the lack of it.

We have women who can't get refuge.

We have women who have nowhere to live.

They're living in car parks because they've fled.

They've fled their home and nowhere for them to be.

So we have income issues, we have accessing service issues.

We know that the domestic violence services in particular across every Satan territory cannot keep up with demand.

We have some women calling places like Dvconnect and being told come back in two days.

We don't have enough resources to handle your case.

It's a shit show from whe to go.

There's not enough money to resource the safety nets.

There's not enough policy to protect women.

There's not enough policy to turn perpetrator behavior around it.

It's just a mess.

It's a big fat mess.

It's going to take some doing.

And I guess what we saw in the federal election, women issues being ignored yet again entirely.

I mean, less than two percent of social media posts by both the opposition and labor focused on women's safety, less than two percent, And then when questioned about it, they would go, well, no, we're focusing on women with childcare and you know with pressure price reductions and stuff like that.

They just don't get it.

They honestly don't get it.

They don't get that the system is broken and needs wholesale fixing and wholesale funding support.

And that funding doesn't come from the federal government.

It's also got to come from the state and territories.

So in the Northern Territory, for example, we have a situation where the LMP is taking the very small pool of domestic and family violence funding and they're moving it into juvenile crime prevention.

So what they're basically saying is black women's lives don't matter, but white people's cars do.

They want to protect property from young people being naughty, like committing crimes.

They don't want to protect women who are exceedingly high risker.

Also in the Northern Territory, there's no space in the watchhouses.

So we have a situation where a woman died under suspicious circumstances up there this year.

She had to go back to her partner because there was no room in refuge none at all.

She had nowhere else to go.

She was pregnant.

She went back to him thinking that was the only place she could be because she couldn't get refuge and she wouldn't have support with the baby.

He meanwhile, was charged with domestic violence offences and released on bail because there was no room in the watchhouse to hold him.

So no bed in refuge, no room in watchhouse.

Woman is dead.

Horrible, horrible, It's very sad.

Where do you go from there?

I guess we can we look at the bigger picture, but we're just also trying to deal with the individual ones as well.

What are your thoughts with Amy's case.

I don't understand why someone hasn't been charged.

What's the hold up?

What are they doing?

What a police?

Yes, well they are investigating, but the problem is, and as you would have come across this before, sometimes these things become political.

Absolutely.

I mean, you're not going to get an outcome for her family or for Amy if there is no charge or there is no coronial ruling that reflects what the situation is.

The reality is she died under suspicious circumstances, there was only one person there when it happened.

There should be a proper investigation.

There should be charges or legitimate reason why there's lot of charges, And if there's not charges, then there needs to be a thorough coroner's inquest to get a proper finding.

You can't leave people hanging like this, and you can't leave potential killers out there without doing something.

It's mind boggling that they're not doing the bare minimum and you know, investigating and charge it doesn't make any sense.

The work is made so much easier because of the bravery of the families like the people who lose women to violence are the most courageous human beings.

I've never met people like them.

And every day it's fine to do this job because I know that these amazing people are out there fighting much bigger demons than I ever will.

I mean, unless you've actually dealt with a family who has taken up this fight, you cannot understand the depth of their courage.

You just cannot understand it.

It is amazing to just keep on putting your feet forward, and they're just constantly going over these roadblocks and these walls and going through cement wet cement to get up every day and continue doing that.

I don't know.

I don't know how they do it, but I just cannot how much respect I have for them, for any family who's doing this.

So Cherrelle Moody kept her word and put us in touch with Courtney Anderson's family.

A few days later, we interviewed Courtney's mum, Leanne Rasby, her dad Don Anderson, and stepmom Christy Ibbotson.

A phone call no mother should ever have to receive.

That same night, the local news ran a story.

Courtney Page Anderson died on April first last year.

The official police release said she exited a moving car on the Bruce Highway.

In an interview, Rockhampton journalist Lillly McDougall asked Leanne about when she first heard of her daughter's death.

I had a knock at the door to staffter midnight.

Our other daughter, Courtney's sister, Kat was living downstairs, and she called out to me.

She saidly, I need you to come down.

The police need to talk to you.

And when I got there, there was two officers with torch lights because our outside lights were on, and I said, oh my god, it's caught me.

He's killed her, hasn't he?

And what had been told you?

There had been a roadside incident, So then I started to think, I for got this wrong.

It's just a horrible accident.

She was on the road earlier than she was supposed to be, and it's just an accident.

But somebody on Facebook who knew about that accident had put a post up, and we then knew that there was another person in the vehicle with her.

She was due to pick somebody up from.

Rocky on the way up, but the accident happened before Rocky, so then we started to think was he in the car.

As soon as we knew he was in the car, alarm bells were ringing right from the very moment.

Within forty eight hours, eight family members were simultaneously interviewed by the CIB.

All of those statements outlining her domestic violence and our knowledge of her life was submitted to the coroner, and the coroner did not acknowledge one word about any of it.

Nothing.

He said that Courtney most likely had undiagnosed mental health issues, which was something that her ex partner had said verbally at the scene.

Oh she's crazy, She's suicidal.

She wasn't suicidal.

She had a good grip on her life.

Courtney's parents say their daughter had been in a toxic relationship.

Sound familiar with her partner, Ashley Campbell for more than a decade, and he was volatile.

And we had an incident where she was supposed to be with us Christmas Day, and when she ran late, we rang her and rang her.

Eventually she picked up and said she'd misplaced her keys.

If you've misplaced your keys, you just rang up and say I can't find my keys, Come get me.

So I got in the car and I went over and I picked her up, and I could see she was distressed.

But I didn't discuss it with her.

I didn't I didn't pry.

In the end, I just loved her.

I just bought her home.

She dressed in matching pajamas with her sister, and we had her niece and nephew over and for Christmas, and she had a nice time, but we knew something was quite wrong.

She stayed with us the most of the day and spent the afternoon on her bed with her sister.

We didn't know till the next morning that he had locked her out of the house again, and she spent Christmas night in her car with no phone, no shoes on her feet, and she arrived on our doorstep at Boxing Day morning asking her stepfather, my husband, if he could come and get her car started and please get her phone.

So Ian went over there insisted on getting get the phone back.

And it was a scenario that happened far too often, but that was the most recent episode.

Within a week, Courtney said to me, Mum, we're calling it quits.

As soon as he gets his license back, repeat, repeat, repeat, drug driving, driving without a license.

This was just a never ending pattern of an eleven year relationship.

She said, as soon as he gets his license, he's taking the dogs, he's taking the van and he's going to Brisbane.

I'm going to keep the house.

It's okay, mum, you know, just let me handle it my way.

And I said, honey, you don't have to explain it to me.

I trust you, I believe in you.

You just manage the best you can, and then a couple of short months later she was gone again.

You know, he only had his license back eighteen days, and this time Courtney lost her life.

And how do you view an you learn that the driver didn't call emergency services or try to help her.

I don't know how to answer that.

I don't have words for how I feel about about that.

You claim to love someone for eleven years and you don't provide CBO, you don't call for an ambulance, You just sit there watching her bleed out until passes by help.

It took nine months for them to charge him, and they only charged him because I threatened to go to the press with the fact that he hadn't been charged.

And why does it take nine months?

Why wasn't he charged?

Why did it take so long?

Why does nothing touch this man?

When you read the police report, this is astounding.

So in the police's report, Ashley Campbell told the officers, and I'm quoting here al the couple were at home and began arguing.

Normally, if they're arguing, they will go for a drive and talk shit out, and he would sometimes smoke some weed.

The fighting had been shit all day and it didn't get worse, and it didn't get better.

He made her feel like shit because of the cheating.

They left home and headed towards Rockhampton.

They were in Courtney's gold Toyota Highlus and he was driving and she was in the passenger seat.

Just before dark, they were on the Bruce Highway and they were arguing.

He couldn't remember what was being said other than fuck you back and forth between each other.

They were driving and hit a straight bit with grass on both sides.

Courtney opened the door and jumped out without warning.

It happened too quick and he should've grabbed her, but didn't think she would jump out after opening the door.

They were traveling about eighty kilometers per hour.

Cambell put the brakes on and pulled over and had run back to where the deceased had rolled on the grass.

The deceased was in a bad way and bleeding.

He tried to get attention from people passing by, but a lot of people didn't stop.

He was then assisted by people stopping in providing her first aid.

He then doesn't remember anything as he passed out a few times.

He stated that the deceased had jumped out of the car once before when they were pulled up at roadworks, but they ended up speaking to police.

The report then states that there was no record of this on q Prime, which is where QPS lodges all of its incidents.

No one witnessed the incident only afterwards, after Courtney allegedly had already jumped The police report also noted that family provided them with six of Courtney's mobile phones, which Campbell had allegedly smashed over the years.

They were only able to turn one of these on as the remainder had no power at all.

However, attempts to retrieve information were unsuccessful.

They later attempted to obtain CCTV from cameras on the Bruce Highway from Queensland Transport and Main Roads, but because they didn't investigate immediately, the footage had already been whited.

The report was dated first of May, one month after Courtney's death.

One month one month again a slack police investigation.

You'd have to say, wouldn't you incredible?

Why does this happened?

So this guy's got a record of being violent toward her, So you've got all this going on, and we're led to believe that she just jumped out of the car.

Yeah, because that happens all the time.

Not just moving at eighty ks an hour.

Yeah, but it's a product of arguing.

And so if you believe his story, she's the one who gave up on the argument and just jumped out at the risk of death.

Yeah.

So on October the eleven, Queensland's longest serving coroner, guy called David O'Connell, who just clocked up twelve years as the state's central coroner, delivered this finding.

On the first of April twenty twenty four, Miss Anderson died after she allegedly alighted from a motor vehicle which was then traveling highway speeds.

The police conducted an investigation into the circumstances of her death.

The police established that no other vehicle was involved in the incident and from seeing evidence and information provided to police.

Sorry for laughing, as the information provided by the partner.

It was consistent with her opening the passenger door of the vehicle and throwing herself from the vehicle whilst it was moving.

The driver alleged as they drove along the highway they were arguing over alleged infidelity issues.

When the deceased issued an expletive, indicating she was tired of the argument, and she then without warning, opened the door and thre through herself from the vehicle.

Yeah, of course we all do that, and we're sick of arguing, we just jump out.

Her partner said she was usually a person of good general health, but when they argued, she had episodes of anger and possibly mania, and she may have undiagnosed mental health issues.

This is from the partner.

He is the one running the entire narrative to police, and they've taken him on face value, and then the coroner has taken the police report just on face value.

How is this doing anything for this DV problem?

This is just amazing.

This just continues to be a pattern that is coming out of certain authorities, and I've got to say it's very bloody depressing.

How is this able to happen?

This part here really triggered my interest when in the report where he said that she had episodes of anger and possibly mania and may have undiagnosed mental health issues.

That's basically code for Courtney being unhinged.

And for anyone like me who's watched the Netflix documentary on Gabby Patito, this narrative is all too familiar.

No, exactly, it's the ultimate gas lighting, isn't it?

This whole idea that you know they're arguing all day?

So what's the solution getting the car go for a drive?

I mean, you know her car too, her car, because she's the only one who's got any money, who's got the job, the regular job, the regular employment to pay for the motor vehicle.

So the responsible person in the entire relationship, you know, over and above, like there's a grand canyon between the responsibility.

She's the one who's unhinged.

Can you believe that?

But how come you and I can see this and read this from afar when the police officers who deal with these sort of people every day are not putting two and two together On the ground.

The scene evidence is consistent with the driver conducting an emergency stop of the vehicle off the road shortly after she had alighted from it.

There was no evidence within the vehicle to suggest there had been any sort of altercation.

An autopsy found she had died due to head injuries as a result of a fall from a moving vehicle.

A toxicology screen detected no blood alcohol, no prescription medications, methyl amphetamine, which is an illicit drug, and an increased level of acetone in her urine, which is usually consistent with a poor nutritional intake.

Uses of methyl amphetamine can have periods of poor nutritional intake due to methyl amphetamine suppressing the natural appetite.

I've got to say, when you look at the toxicology reports, the volume of the meth in her system is absolutely minuscule, to the point where it could possibly be a one off.

Now you can draw your own conclusions from that, and she's never had any record of taking stuff like that either, Allison from her friends and family and close friends.

The driver of the vehicle was tested and his toxicology screen revealed no blood alcohol, no prescription medications, but the presence of illicit drugs methylanphetamine, and also cannabis.

From his own recollections to believes he admitted smoking for most of the day so he was happy to getting the car and drive.

Thenmation available to the police was that on the thirteenth of April twenty twenty one, Miss Anderson and the driver had another incident when their vehicle was stationary at roadworks.

Stationary is the key and.

She suddenly alighted from the vehicle, and her boyfriend then got out of the vehicle and got her back into it.

Apparently it appeared aggressively done.

Aggressively done, so she was happy to get out of the car when it was stopped, but it was aggressively done again, his aggression shining out, he made her get back in the car.

Yeah, I can't help it.

Jump in here, LIAMB.

Do you also find it weird that they would point to an incident where she had gotten out of the vehicle he was driving before on the highway, except it wasn't moving at the time.

It doesn't well, it just doesn't make sense.

Yeah.

Well, I don't know about you, but the only time I've ever heard of anyone jumping out of a moving car is in American action movies.

You know, you see that a bit, but in real life.

So yeah, I find it.

I find it weird that this wasn't considered subitious and lead to a more thorough investigation.

Well, how could it not trigger a much more thorough investigation?

Surely, surely just the nature of the relationship and then the nature of the incident.

I mean, as you say, not every day somebody jumps out of a moving car.

It beggars belief, doesn't it anyway?

The coroner goes on to conclude.

In the circumstances, I find that Miss Anderson, whilst under the influence of methyl amphetamine, an illicit drug, whilst arguing with her partner, opened the door and alighted from it.

Because the car was then traveling at highway speed.

She suffered fatal injuries and died.

There is no evidence to suggest that the driver in any way forced her from the vehicle.

It may be that she had undiagnosed health issues, perhaps relating to anger management.

Issues anchor management, but she took.

No prescription medications to assist with that.

It may be that methyl amphetamine affected her clarity of rational thinking and judgment at the time.

Magistrate O'Connell, Central Coroner, even October twenty twenty four.

And I think worth noting here that while this is just key passages from the coroner's report, his findings are barely barely a page long.

But it's the conclusion that I find most interesting, where the coron hypothesizes that maybe it's the word.

Maybe Courtney had undiagnosed health issues, perhaps relating to anger management issues, suggesting the absence of prescription medications was an issue.

Now do you think that's a pretty long boat of drawl?

What do you think about that?

So he's suggesting that there was something that was undiagnosed and that she should have had some sort of therapy via prescription and she would have been okay, what and that would have stopped her from jumping out of a car doing Addie ksan out down the Bruce Highway.

What?

And does he know her?

I mean he's going on what the partner said, right, who has a long history of violence.

Oh no, No, it's totally his story.

It's totally his story.

It's exactly the same as the Amy Wensley case, where everyone has gone on what David Simmons has said.

The person who's left behind, the person who's still alive, gets to completely dictate the narrative.

This is only last year, and you know the Audery Griffins won only this year.

I just thought that things were getting better, Leam.

Yeah, Will you'd think that every time a case like this comes up, which is all too often, you'd think.

Now, with all the magnification of things that you know, you and I are talking about, I mean all these all these different things, you would have people absolutely sort of on on on edge.

All these investigative bodies would be on edge about anything that looked vaguely suspicious.

But clearly that's not happening.

And I dare use a driving metaphor here, but a lot of people are asleep at the wheel.

So also, let's go back to the ice issue right now.

Given there's such a big focus on Courtney being a potential ice addict, because that's essentially what they're saying, let's read between the lines.

It would be negligent of us not to tell you exactly what the toxicology reports were, right, let's be scientifically factual about this.

According to the certificate of analysis, there was a reading of zero point zero one milligram of amphetamine.

In fact, less than zero point zero one milligram of methylamphetamine, which appears to be the lowest detection possible.

Right, so just registered, no drugs were detected in her urine.

Very very important, that very important.

Ashley Campbell's reading was zero point zero two milligrams of methamphetamine and zero point zero one four miligrams of cannabis.

So if you're surmising that less than zero point zero one milligrams of metlamphetamine affected the clarity of Courtney's thinking.

Right, If you're saying that had an influence, then why wouldn't you extend that exact same opinion into Ashley Campbell given that his reading was twice as high.

Right, Yeah, does that make sense to you or not?

Yeah?

Oh, absolutely, surely that's logic.

And remember and remember Courtney has no cannabis in her system whatsoever, whereas Ashley is high as a kite on top of the metal amphetam.

Now, if this went to inquest, you'd probably consult an expert to provide more context to these readings, right, and they'd be able to give you sort of more sort of physical and psycho analysis of cause and effect blah blah blah, according to the amounts.

But here's Courtney's family, because they've got a bit to say about us.

And she got into industry base work with her trainee ship, and she was going to Mackay for a two week shutdown at a mine the very next day where she was going to be drug tested.

When they walked through the gate, she was definitely not taking drugs.

She loved that job.

That job was her out to get away from him, Like we were saying before about he had always wanted to move away, because after people get to know his lifestyle, he always wants to move.

And they've moved four or five times backwards and boards, Sunshine Case, Go Case, Logan Area, back to Gladstone, and it was time for him to move on again, and she didn't want to move and she was using her trainee ship to say, well, I need to finish this, you go and then I'll come.

That was her out.

That was the thing that she was trying to do that she didn't want us involved in.

She was pete heady.

She wanted to do it herself.

She didn't want our involvement.

She had never told me that personally, because we had an estrange relationship from when I kicked him out of a house that they are renting off me back in twenty twenty one, when I first became aware of the actual physical abuse.

Always knew he was controlling, but I was never aware of the physical abuse until that day.

I was in the bank with my other daughter and she was getting phone calls and we had to leave that appointment to go and pick Courtney up.

She'd run down the road and.

She was hiding in a reef boat on someone's boat down the road.

She was hiding from him, and we picked her up and brought her back.

Here to our house.

And that day was the day that she actually told us of years.

Of stuff, and it was so in the interests of complete transparency.

Courtney's stepmom, Christy acknowledges too that she smoked cannabis regularly when she was younger, but the reading doesn't justify painting her as an isotic.

I've also done my own research on that, and that could easily be passive smoking as well, so I don't believe that that would have been her doing that to herself.

Considering that Leanne and Courtney both decided to get I'm very old, I was going to say I shouldn't probably tell Leanne's story, she should tell that herself.

I'm an alcoholic and Courtney was not liking my drinking and wanted me to stop.

And I said, you smoke dope, don't tell me what to do, and she said, if I give up, you give up, So we gave up together.

I'm three years sober and Courtney was sober and clean at the time of her death.

She went into construction in which you are drug tested.

We did this together, her and I.

It was just another part of our relationship.

So I'm well aware that Courtney was not under the influence of drugs in the past couple of years.

And then Courtney decided to leave him.

She was getting ready to go away.

She called over on the Saturday before her death.

It was over Easter.

She picked up some things from her room that she was taking to Mackay.

She said, Mom, I'll pop in and see you Monday before I go Tuesday, and that's what I was expecting.

I was expecting to see her Monday afternoon.

Two phone calls were made, one to her other sister, Cat saying I'm done, I'm done, I'm out.

This is it?

Another to her stepfather and he was mowing the lawns and he missed the call.

By the time he rang back, there was no answer that he couldn't make contact with her.

So they were fighting badly that day.

The police know this.

He admitted to fighting.

We had the proof that they were fighting.

Like Amy Leanne says, Courtney was in the process of leaving her violent partner.

If Courtney wanted to go somewhere, she would have been going with her dogs to the beach.

She wouldn't have been going alone in a car with him.

Her car was packed with the remainder of her belongings.

She was leaving, Why was he driving?

Why was he in the car at all?

The coroner ruled that it was Courtney's fault.

None of the domestic violence was taken into account, none of it.

Why do we just sweep it under the mat like they always do, easier to blame the victim.

Courtney's dad, Don says they first met when Courtney was in year nine at Rockhampton Girl's Grammar.

Ashley was seven years older than her and was.

In a friend group with in my nephew's group like in primary early high school, but all sort of he hung around.

We have found entries in HERGGSA She went to Rocky Girls Grammar in grade nine, so that would have been two thousand.

Men two nine, I think it would have been, so.

He would have been a twenty year old.

She was a fourteen year old, and we have entries in her diary where he has attempted to come and act as a family member to take her out, and she was excited about it.

So we believe he was grooming her from way back.

Then it's been in and out of court four or five times.

He has only just received sentence last week and it was three months, three months loss of license, an additional four months loss of license because since he's had this charge, he's gone for another DD.

He also took a knife to court on one of his appearances and was arrested.

Two thousand dollars in charges and a combined effort of only.

Six months loss of license.

We believe that Courtney deserves more than that, not only that he's had three offenses within eighteen months.

Our understanding of the law is you do jail time for that sort of thing.

So why is he getting away with this?

The family says, since contacting the media, a death through you is now underway and tens of thousands of people have signed a petition.

Good.

Yeah, that's great support, isn't it.

Yeah, So at the moment we do have a petition in place with nearly thirty thousand signatures thanks to Charrell's help, and we are petitioning for an inquest.

We're also had meetings with a lot of people.

We've got the Justice Clinic in Newcastle run by Peter Goerdy AND's Anthey Mullett that have jumped on board with us with their law students and we've had a couple of meetings with them that they are investigating and once we get more information we continue to send that to them.

Also spoken to Brian Sullivan from the Domestic Family Violence Death Review Unit.

He also runs Secure Training, he owns Secure Training, sorry he trains the QPS into recognizing the signs of domestic violence.

We've had meetings with Shannon Pantamin as well, that is hopefully going to be helping us down the track with trying to get an inquest or if not an inquest, a proper actual investigation through the Homicide Squad with the Domestic Violence Lens so that it's properly investigated.

We have towns for community lawyers as well that have jumped on board that there's two in Queensland that do directly deal with the coronial courts that is, and they are one of them and they're helping us through this process as well.

So yeah, we have a few bits and pieces that are going on.

There's also an internal review into the queen Land Police handling of Courtney's case, an internal review to see that it was handled correctly.

We had a four and a half hour interview with the CIB and Rocky and they told us that they were gearing up to investigate further.

But the coroner didn't ask for any sort of police statement, didn't ask for the body cam.

The coroner basically shut us down.

What charges did he get in relation to the incident?

Just a drug driving charge, driving under the influence of drugs, But he.

Was on his provisional license and the police didn't prosecute him properly, so there's another failing well.

They originally charged him with driving under the influence on the first of April for the incident where Courtney passed away.

They changed that charge to DUI under the influence of drugs and he had had his license back, so he had his PEA license.

He had his license back eighteen days.

They negated in the charge it Charlie found out in court.

They negated to charge him as a provisional driver's license, which would have held a higher charge.

He also got charge for the bringing the knife to court and then he also got done on the twenty eighth of February in Gladstone for another drug driving charge, this time just for cannabis.

That was eleventh months into that provisional and he also got done for drug driving in that and they failed to add the provisional charge, which would have been a bigger charge.

Has he denied it?

Has he denied any physical coercion in the car or anything.

So on the actual police statements, they asked him about the domestic violence and he refuses to speak to them about the domestic violence.

So that was the end of that.

So there's no actual denial, as Jessair refused to.

They just released, didn't push, Nobody pushed, Nobody said you need to answer.

They say, I've read.

Him his rights, He's acted on his right to remain silent.

There's nothing can be done.

So, like Charelle said, when police failed to investigate properly in the first instance, it's basically up to the family to fight for justice for their loved ones, while obviously at the same time grieving their loss.

Courtney was amazing.

She was just a really beautiful kid that grew into a really nice adult.

You know, she cared for animals.

She volunteered at the local animal shelter.

Her dogs were her world.

You know, family was really important.

She had just got a traineeship she'd been working in industry a couple of years and she's got a trainee ship in her dream job, so she was very happy.

She was the most excited we had seen her in years.

She finally got to where she wanted to be.

She just bought a brand new car, not brain new, but brand new for her and naturally it was a ute so she could take her dogs to the beach.

Leanne says Courtney was also tough.

She was fiercely loyal, and she was quite outspoken.

If she thought someone was getting a hard time, she would speak up.

She would say so as she was genuine and caring.

And we weren't aware how Courtney had touched so many people until her funeral, which was overwhelming.

She touched everybody's life that she came into contact with in a really good way.

I know every mother says that their child is the best, but she certainly turned out fine.

So we were very proud of her, and we still are very proud of her.

I realized that coroner's police emergency officers deal with so many tragedies liam and maybe some end up suffering from victim fatigue, but hearing from the family, it's a really important reminder that every life matters.

That doesn't mean you have to get emotionally involved, but I think it's important for people in these really important positions to be self aware.

It may seem like a lot of work to get to the bottom of every case, but you can't become blind to certain details which don't ring true.

And maybe that's what happened here.

Yeah, and when that happens, it becomes a much bigger drain on resources in the long term, doesn't it, because you've got to pour in so much extra to then get it right and fix the mistakes that you've missed.

Yeah.

Well, if you're in that position, then you've really got to take you know, if it's PTSD, like you need some therapy, some support, something, you know, you just, yeah, you need to take a break anyway.

Meanwhile, I caught up with Courtney Anderson's former partner, Ashley Campbell, and we spoke for about half an hour, but he didn't want to go on the record.

However, as we heard earlier from the police report, he told officers Courtney jumped out of the car without warning, regardless of anything.

No, Liam, people jumping out of a speeding car is not a typical event, and it seems nonsensical that at the very least it hasn't gone to inquest.

I've reached out to both the Attorney General Deb Recklington's office and Queensland Police Service on this, but they needed a bit more time to get back to me with a response.

Well, I hope they get back with a positive response because I totally agree with you.

It absolutely needs to go to inquest.

That's that's the least they can do.

It absolutely needs to go to w inquest, and if it doesn't, there's something wrong with the system.

Al what was he like?

I know this, He's obviously spoken to you off the record, so you can't you can't parlay that.

But what was this guy?

Was he consistent with jumping out of the car?

Or was he all over the place?

How did you find him?

No?

He was you know, he spoke.

Yeah, he spoke normally in the sense like it wasn't like David Simmons who was just all real aggressive.

He was a bit more amiable, like he wanted to I guess be l liked I suppose or believed.

But yeah, bells are ringing, bells are ringing.

Liam.

He doesn't want to do an interview on the record.

No, no, but remember he didn't want to say any more to police either.

I mean he lawyered up within twenty four hours.

He removed all all I mean this is just from the family.

He removed all his belongings from the house, like he is in this for the long haul.

All right, Well, let's wait for that response from the Attorney General Frecklington's office and also the Queensland Police Service.

Look forward to that ol Also in the next episode, will the Triple C in Western Australia, the Corruption and Crime Commission, will they oversee the new investigation into Amy's case, and that WA police wait the evidence fairly in its report to the DPP.

That's the big question.

I'll hold my own counsel, I have my own communications with the Commissioner.

But I think when there's an issue that is live, it's best that the police be allowed to get on and make their investigation.

And if the Triple CC fit to make an inquiry or look at anything in particular, that's a matter for them.

And what a trial can include that the inquest did not.

The review concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish the involvement of another person in missus Wendesley's death.

When I read that, my first thought was, shouldn't that be the reverse?

Is there insufficient evidence?

Well, was it in fact suicide?

My assumption is you assume foul play and work backwards.

Keep your mind really open so you don't miss anything.

Until next week.

Thanks al.

Listen your c.

SO devers now.

To me.

If you knew Amy and have information, any information about her death, we'd love to hear from you.

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Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, presenter and investigative journalist Liam Bartlett, sound design Mark Wright, Assistant producer, Cassie Woodward, Graphics Jason Blandford and special thanks to Brian Seymour and Jessica Evanson.

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